very useful for a gentleman, and sometimes I may have
occasion of using it, and though it cost me what I
am heartily sorry it should, besides that I must by
my oath give half as much more to the poor, yet I
am resolved to get it up some other way, and then it
will not be above a month or two in a year.
So though it be against my stomach yet I will try
it a little while; if I see it comes to any great inconvenience
or charge I will fling it off. After I had begun
with the steps of half a coranto, which I think I
shall learn well enough, he went away, and we to dinner,
and by and by out by coach, and set my wife down at
my Lord Crew’s, going to see my Lady Jem.
Montagu, who is lately come to town, and I to St.
James’s; where Mr. Coventry, Sir W. Pen and I
staid a good while for the Duke’s coming in,
but not coming, we walked to White Hall; and meeting
the King, we followed him into the Park, where Mr.
Coventry and he talked of building a new yacht, which
the King is resolved to have built out of his privy
purse, he having some contrivance of his own.
The talk being done, we fell off to White Hall, leaving
the King in the Park, and going back, met the Duke
going towards St. James’s to meet us. So
he turned back again, and to his closett at White
Hall; and there, my Lord Sandwich present, we did
our weekly errand, and so broke up; and I down into
the garden with my Lord Sandwich (after we had sat
an hour at the Tangier Committee); and after talking
largely of his own businesses, we begun to talk how
matters are at Court: and though he did not flatly
tell me any such thing, yet I do suspect that all
is not kind between the King and the Duke, and that
the King’s fondness to the little Duke do occasion
it; and it may be that there is some fear of his being
made heir to the Crown. But this my Lord did
not tell me, but is my guess only; and that my Lord
Chancellor is without doubt falling past hopes.
He being gone to Chelsey by coach I to his lodgings,
where my wife staid for me, and she from thence to
see Mrs. Pierce and called me at Whitehall stairs (where
I went before by land to know whether there was any
play at Court to-night) and there being none she and
I to Mr. Creed to the Exchange, where she bought something,
and from thence by water to White Fryars, and wife
to see Mrs. Turner, and then came to me at my brother’s,
where I did give him order about my summer clothes,
and so home by coach, and after supper to bed to my
wife, with whom I have not lain since I used to lie
with my father till to-night.
5th. Up betimes and to my office, and there busy all the morning, among other things walked a good while up and down with Sir J. Minnes, he telling many old stories of the Navy, and of the state of the Navy at the beginning of the late troubles, and I am troubled at my heart to think, and shall hereafter cease to wonder, at the bad success of the King’s cause, when such a knave as he (if it be true what he says) had the whole management of the fleet, and